Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh are pioneers in the story of modern paintings. Munch and Van Gogh never met but they had a lot in common, and ever since the 1890s art critics and curators have loved comparing their beautiful but troubled paintings.

Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh are pioneers in the story of modern paintings. Munch and Van Gogh never met but they had a lot in common, and ever since the 1890s art critics and curators have loved comparing their beautiful but troubled paintings. Now these two tormented pioneers of modern art are united at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, in a fascinating show which presents both artists in a fresh light.

Some of the similarities are uncanny: Munch’s Starry Night hangs alongside Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over The Rhone; Van Gogh’s At The Dance Hall in Arles (1888) hangs alongside Munch’s At The Roulette Table in Monte Carlo (1892).

Yet despite their different fates, their formative years ran in tandem. They were both in Paris at the same time, but their paths never crossed. This is the story of a friendship which should have been, but never was.

Munch and Van Gogh took these influences off in an entirely new direction. "They weren’t working in one school or one style – they were both like sponges, soaking up all these different influences, and then doing something very new and very personal with it," says Van Dijk.

Like Van Gogh, Munch engages directly with the viewer, with an intensity that’s unequalled in modern art. Both men understood the inherent loneliness of humanity, the suffering that’s inseparable from self-awareness.

This is why their work is still so moving, and why they go so well together. "During his short life, Van Gogh did not allow his flame to go out – fire and embers were his brushes," declared Munch. "I have thought and wished that I would not let my flame go out, and with a burning brush paint to the end."

Van Gogh is at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from 25 September 2015 to 17 January 2016.
- Source: BBC news